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Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who used the name of the warrior Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was shot by two men on a motorcycle in Tehran.
He was accused of assisting in the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Africa.
Masri was seen as the likely successor to Ayman al-Zawahri, the current al-Qaeda leader. It is NOT clear whether the United States played an operational role in the death of the Egyptian-born terrorist.
Al-Masri was executed on August 7, the anniversary of the embassy attacks, the New York Times writes, adding that the Americans have been following his movements in Iran and other al-Qaeda fighters in Iran for years.
Masri was killed along with his daughter, the widow of Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden.
Masri has been in Iran’s “custody” since 2003, but has been living freely in a wealthy Tehran suburb since 2015, US intelligence officials told the New York Times.
US counterterrorism agencies believed that Iran would allow it to live there to conduct operations against US targets.
Al Qaeda has not announced his death, the Iranian authorities have covered up the incident and no government has publicly claimed responsibility for al-Masri’s assassination, the newspaper also cited.
Iran on Saturday rejected the information in the NYT article, claiming there are no al-Qaeda “terrorists” in its territory.
“From time to time, Washington and Tel Aviv try to link Iran and those groups by lying and leaking false information in the media to avoid responsibility for the criminal activities of this group and other terrorist groups in the region.” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said.
The FBI was offering a $ 10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of al-Masri, accused of participating in the 1998 attack on the US embassies in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Tanzania).
